On 21 April, the European Parliament’s Panel for the Future of Science and Technology (STOA) hosted a pivotal workshop titled “Automated Vehicles in the EU: Deployment and Impacts.” Chaired by Pierfrancesco Maran MEP, the event concluded a major STOA study by Professors Werner Huber and Michael Botsch (THI) mapping the future of autonomous driving in Europe.
Representing ERTICO on the expert stakeholder panel, Dr Stephane Dreher, Head of CCAM, who also contributed to the study, shared critical insights on how Europe can bridge the gap between world-class research and commercial scaling.
While the study highlighted Europe’s industrial vulnerabilities, specifically its reliance on foreign AI hardware and cloud infrastructure, the debate carved out a highly strategic, distinct, safety-first, human-centric and digitally sovereign European path forward.
Scaling the European Innovation Ecosystem
A core takeaway from the panel was that Europe possesses a fundamentally strong, uniquely distributed innovation ecosystem. Built on a decade of collaborative, pan-European R&I and cross-border testing, the expertise is already there.
The immediate challenge, however, is anchoring and scaling this know-how on European soil. To do this, the ecosystem must move decisively past isolated pilot projects and focus on shared European building blocks: software, data connectivity (V2X), physical and digital infrastructure support, and validation methods.
The Value of Public-Led Models and Freight
The dialogue underscored a vital distinction in how automated mobility should be deployed:
- Societal Outcomes: Evidence shows that public-led and public-private partnership models consistently deliver better societal outcomes than purely market-driven approaches. Integrating automated mobility into public transit ensures reduced urban congestion and equitable access.
- Focus on priority use cases for society: Many priority use cases—especially in peri-urban and low-density areas—are not the most commercially viable ones Automated mobility must be profitable from a societal perspective, serving accessibility, safety and cohesion for all Europeans. Heavy freight and logistics for example deserve stronger attention. Automated trucking offers an immediate, quantifiable solution to Europe's severe commercial driver shortages and cross-border operational friction.
Informed Deployment Decisions
As Europe navigates the rollout of the revised Product Liability Directive later this year, a robust impact assessment is essential. Cities and Member States must move from experimentation to informed, data-driven deployment decisions.
ERTICO remains at the forefront of this transition, coordinating support actions across Europe and championing the EU Common Evaluation Methodology to help stakeholders accurately measure CCAM's impact on safety, emissions, and urban livability.
The next STOA Panel meeting will take place on Thursday, 18 June 2026, from 09:30 to 11:00 in WEISS S2.2. It will feature a presentation of the study “The European Approach to Liability for the AI Age” and will be webstreamed here.
Sources:
European Parliament. (2026, April 21). Panel for Future of Science and Technology (STOA) workshop: The future of autonomous vehicles [Video]. Multimedia Centre. https://multimedia.europarl.europa.eu/en/webstreaming/panel-for-future-of-science-and-technology-stoa-workshop-the-future-of-autonomous-vehicles_20260421-1500-SPECIAL-STOA
European Parliament. (2026, April 21). STOA workshop: Automated vehicles in the EU: Deployment and impacts. Panel for the Future of Science and Technology (STOA). https://www.europarl.europa.eu/stoa/en/events/details/stoa-workshop-automated-vehicles-in-the-/20260319WKS06921